Category Archives: Middle East

In their private communications rooms in Washington, D.C. and Jerusalem, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu stand before movie screens and gaze at each other before breaking into smiles. “Great to see you, Mr. President. I just wish I could shake your hand.” “We’ll soon be shaking hands again, Bibi, but right now I have a […]

Look at those Democratic ladies dressed in white flags of surrender during my State of the Union address. They know I’ve given Americans their best wages in decades and an economy growing almost twice as fast as when I took office. Some say I inherited a good economy. Not as good as the one we’ve […]

(Highlights from the recent Cairo speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) I’m always eager to visit Egypt, a land I know so well, and am especially happy this time because I’m an evangelical Christian arriving soon after the Coptic Church celebrated Christmas here in beautiful Cairo. “We are all children of Abraham: Christians, Muslims, […]

I love the Saudis more every day and they feel the same about me because, unlike President Obama, I understand we share their values of making the rich richer and keeping them rich forever, of keeping women in their place, and destroying terrorism. I’m frankly quite surprised that fourteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9/11 […]

I knew I was going to be a hell of a president but, frankly, I underestimated myself. I’ve got a great feel for diplomacy and international relations. Did you see me at the news conference last week with Prime Minister Abe after the North Koreans had test fired another ballistic missile? I coolly let the […]

you ask why with blankets and refreshments we like tourists go to parash hill overlooking gaza and i confess i need angry orange flames and plumes of smoke black white and gray and to see buildings collapse and afterward study crimson photos of corpses wrapped white in sheets like those covering my children when they […]

Thank you very much, and thank all the Americans who have so generously amended their constitution to permit me, a man not native to this great country but who in many ways is inherently American, to try to achieve my greatest dream and become your president. I deserve your votes, and in fact am now […]

I was an Iraqi professor of statistics until the United States and later ISIS destroyed my classroom and much of the university. I suppose I should thank each group for attacking when school wasn’t in session, but I believe that may have been coincidental. At any rate, like civilized people everywhere, I commiserate with the […]

Our home is not a house but a shack offering two small old rooms without air conditioning and no heat but a plug-in device that little warms us on cold Palestinian nights. My ancient pickup truck barely runs over unpaved roads in and around our crowded village, and I can’t use the excellent highways Israelis […]

We in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are most chagrined by quite ignorant insults about our unwillingness to accept refugees from imploding Syria. It’s unconscionable, say arrogant Westerners, that the Saudis can’t welcome some of their Arab brothers and sisters who’ve been displaced by an enduring civil war; these refugees share the same language and […]

I didn’t panic at all, not at first. We tourists at the Museo Casa de Purgatorio in Guanajuato simply followed the guide behind stone walls into a dim room where he said, “Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have a traditional stockade used to harness drunks and teach them discipline. Sir, would you like the give […]

Don’t blame me Iraq’s falling apart. I tried to save the country and make it free and prosperous in the twenty-first century and beyond, and would’ve been successful but early in 2009 I had to turn the White House over to Barack Obama, a liberal weakling, and conditions in Iraq deteriorated after he stuck his […]

Business is great, and I’m hiring more workers this week. We’ll soon be building fifteen hundred new housing units in the West Bank. The Palestinians are outraged but we don’t care. They can’t stop us and we can’t stop ourselves. Every time they scratch themselves or, more worrisome, exercise democratic rights, we pick up our […]

Thankfully I’m an empathetic man or I would’ve hammered my driver into the head of the flunky who interrupted my backswing on the gorgeous eighteenth tee at Doral. He said he was an aide to President Barack Obama and urged me to help save Iraq and the Middle East and vital American and Israeli interests. […]

All Iranian leaders are wolves. Ahmadinejad dressed like wolf so was less dangerous than new President Hassan Rouhani who’s disguised as sheep so can pull wool over international eyes. He wants you to forget decade ago he masterminded hiding nuclear weapons program. He didn’t fool Israel. No one fools us. And we pray he won’t […]

I am Hassan Rouhani, new president of Iran and most reasonable and educated man. I speak Persian, Arabic, and English well, received law degree in Scotland, and have served Iran in many high military, diplomatic, and political offices. No one has more relevant experience. I understand people and universal need for expression and think you […]

Let’s be honest. I’m shrewdest politician in world. I maneuver into many terms as president, deftly gag dissenters, jail Pussy Riot female rockers who belittle Christ, and now I write columns for New York Times. If life weren’t so good in Russia I’d move to Big Apple and comment full-time. I have special insight into […]

We have unassailable evidence Bashar al-Assad gassed Syrian civilians in vile attempt to retain stranglehold on country. What we don’t have is war-winning military option. Americans don’t want to fight in Syria and neither do allies. It’s therefore incumbent on me, as decorated and oft-wounded warrior, to stand up and challenge Assad to hand-to-hand combat. […]

Obama has red line between eyes that means I can use gas whenever. I don’t want to every day, only when I need to. Sometimes I need to gas children and other sleeping civilians who understand I must keep power. Only I am qualified to lead. Before I took over, only Father was fit. Syria […]

I detest people who doubt I’m ideal President of Egypt. I oppose tyranny and always did in years as activist in Muslim Brotherhood. Now I’m battling reactionary elements of former regime trying to regain power and repress liberty. I don’t allow courts to help enemies of progress. I ignore them and godless parties seeking to […]

I’m not dork or mass murderer. I’m Syrian President for Life and with iron fist striking foreign terrorists agitating my people. This I decree during fiery speeches forcing everyone to understand father and I’ve ruled Syria forty years, lot less than forever enemies will have to wait for me to leave. Twenty million Syrians know […]

I’m chief of Iranian Cyber-police but you don’t need name. You also don’t need names of three policemen I arrested and will detain while death of blogger Sattar Beheshti is investigated. You must, however, understand we won’t permit Iranian Revolution to be subverted by U.S.-fomented computer agitators. I guarantee Sattar Beheshti deserved to be imprisoned […]

Please be responsible citizens of the world and ignore terrorists’ claims they killed about twenty men at our national military headquarters in downtown Damascus. I assure you none of my officers and soldiers died. Perhaps a few suffered minor injuries. The building itself did sustain some blasts and burns and had to be evacuated. That […]

Don’t know if they were godless communists or radical Muslims but some outrageous critters emailed world map insulting Americans. On map they write we think Canada’s uninhabited. Bull feathers. We know few icy people live up there, and they sure as hell want to be like Alaska next door, which is now America except for […]

Obscene, self-righteous, and unfunny Sacha Baron Cohen has earned a few hundred million dollars, in movies “Borat” and “Bruno,” by insulting rubes in Kazakhstan and the United States, and then either deflecting or burying their lawsuits. Now you can be assured that I, General Aladeen, supreme leader of Wadiya, will by all necessary means forever […]

Criticize Gunter Grass not for being anti-Semitic, which he isn’t, but for choosing the wrong medium to present “What Must Be Said” about the dangers and inequities of Israeli foreign policy. In the second stanza Grass is poetic rather than precise in stating Israel plans “a strike to snuff out the Iranian people.” The descendents […]

After U.S. soldier Robert Bales murders sixteen civilians, most women and children, you want to understand more and peer into lives of Americans fighting in Afghanistan. You can’t go there and don’t have to. In your suburban living room a large flat screen on the wall video streams any movie you choose, in this case […]

I’ve been reading international reports. People are saying I’ve sequestered myself with sycophants and yes men. They should be quiet and listen to the truth. I admit my opposition’s a bit broader than initially perceived. Quite a few terrorist-infected Syrians don’t understand the Assad dynasty must endure. To protect the country I’ve been forced to […]

i am not dork or mass murderer i’m president for life of syria and prepared to strike with iron fist those foreign terrorists who’ve been agitating my people this i decreed during fiery two hour speech forcing everyone to understand my father and i’ve ruled syria forty years lot less than forever they’ll have to […]

1. Jordan River river jordan flowing wide diverted west to sea south to desert leaving bed of roasted shit 2. Olive Trees occupied olive trees not already dead need a drink so do i and a shower and clean clothes i can’t have but am encouraged settlers grow much green grass 3. Giving don’t claim […]

In blighted but affordable east Bakersfield old bank transformed into new mosque hosts annual Islamic Conference where keynote speaker Main Al-Qudah, PhD in Islamic law and imam at large mosque in Houston, steps to podium. He’s slim, stern, middle-aged, dressed in suit and tie, and resembles prosecutor as power points to screen bearing principles of […]

Let’s remember that Muammar Gaddafi is not the only egomaniac threatening to destroy the liberation movement of the Libyan people. While Gaddafi, using tanks and planes and semi-professional troops against brave but untrained and lightly-armed patriots, is starting to build momentum by regaining some recently-lost cities and territory, there are reports the dictator may be […]

I had secretly taken an earlier flight to elude the media and (I later learned) several dozen readers who, by the standards of literary greetings at airports, constituted a throng. I wasn’t being rude. I was terrified. I couldn’t allow them to see me stagger out after one of those hemmed-in, gut-busting, ear-popping, time-altering twelve-hour […]

Visitors to the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, near Jerusalem, are doubtless humbled and excited by the opportunity to establish a physical connection, however mystical, to her son, Jesus Christ. According to the Sacred Tradition of Eastern Christianity, Mary died naturally and three days after being lain to rest was resurrected body and soul into […]

You’re invited. Tune in to “My So-Called Enemy” in the summer of 2002 at a retreat in gentrified New Jersey where for ten days teenage girls from Israel and Palestine are gathered to discuss their lives, seek common ground, and learn conflict resolution skills. The latter two goals are challenging. It’s the second year of […]